J Smith

I'm not an ID expert by any means but that looks like a cereus to me because the ribs are skinny. However, that is a good way to plant them.

So, my mate and I have been trying to grow some chilli seeds that we purchased from The Hippy Seed Company. We made it into a bit of a competition, as we both planted the seeds at the same time and we wanted to see who would grow them best. Seeds were planted in peat pellets and sitting in seedling trays which were on a baking tray on a table in my front garden. Seedling trays were covered by the top half of soft drink bottles to make small greenhouses. I went out this morning at 0800 and saw that 2 of the 5 peat pellets had been disturbed. I initially thought that maybe the wind had blown them over, then thought that as one of the peat pellets was missing that a possum had got them over night. I re-setteled the other pellets and went to work. I came home at 1430ish to find all 5 peat pellets spread across the front garden. In addition, 1 of the 2 A. Maidienii seedlings I had grown from seed (approx. 5 cm tall) had been unrooted. I was a little annoyed. I suspect that a crow has gotten into them, as crows are sneaky fuckers, but I was amazed to think that not only had they worked out to knock over the "greenhouse" bottle tops, but also that the cheeky fuckers had come back for second helpings!! It looks like I have lost the competition with my mate (although she does say she came and uprooted my seedling trays ) and I am now reluctant to leave seedlings in my front yard. I really just wanted to vent, but has anyone else experienced something similar and is there anything I can do to stop it happening again? At least they stayed away from the cactus... EDIT: while they did uproot the acacia (but left it sitting next to the pot), it looks like they dug the chilli seeds out of the soil. Perhaps a bird with a chilli fetish?

OK well I saw a crow uprooting a variegated aloe this morning so I now know what he looks like. I have moved all potted plants around the back for a couple of weeks, I just hope it stays away from the plants in the garden. They are a lot bigger than seedlings so should be OK. I've heard crows have pretty good memories so I imagine it may soon come back when I return potted plants out the front. I'll make sure they are surrounded by cactus to see if that deterrent makes a difference. My mate also had two of her seed pots overturned this morning, she lives about 2 blocks away. We hypothesised that maybe the plastic bottles that were covering the pots caused a glittering effect that attracted the damn bird in the first place. I also found the jiffy pot that went missing the first day, it was in the garden about 5 meters away. It had its arse chewed (pecked?) out. I searched wiki for scarecrow and found this suggestion. "In the southern Appalachians another common method of scaring off crows was use of a dead crow hung upside down from a pole." Might smell a bit hanging next to the front door though...

10 drugs you shouldn't be on while driving The punchline is a bit lame though...

Thanks for the comments. I had grown plenty of seeds on the same table in the past, the main differences being this time 1) I was growing chillis 2) I was using jiffy pots for the first time and (I feel so stupid for not realising this earlier) 3) I had removed the cactus that were also on the table. The cactus were removed 5 weeks ago and seeds had been there for a couple of weeks no problem. I setup the jiffy pots again this morning and they had been disturbed again this arvo. I guess the cactus spirits were guarding the table and weren't happy being moved. Thanks PH I hadn't even put 2 and 2 together!! The chillis had not yet germinated and the seeds had been dug out of the pot, which was what confused me the most. The bird knew what was under the soil level? I was growing a mixture of seed. Hungarian Hot wax, Peruvian White Habanero, Kempsey Red, Scotch Bonnet, and Fatali Habanero. I guess I'll just have to try again, this time keeping my cactus friends close.

Arm-brace slingshots are a restricted import - schedule 2 of the Customs PI regs. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/con...56432/sch2.html

You say it has Quarantine tape on it so it sounds like a Quarantine issue rather than a Customs one. What does the header on the piece of paper say? I'm not sure if it is controlled by Customs or not. Even if it is not controlled by Customs, Quarantine has controls over importing plant material to protect against bugs, diseases and what-not and they look upon unlabeled plant material unfavourably. You can check out ICON here to assist with AQIS requirements. http://www.daffa.gov.au/aqis/import/icon-icd NOTE: Just because something is allowed by AQIS doesn't mean it is allowed by Cusoms - different departments so different rules. Sorry that I cannot help with the Customs legalities.

Yep, at the extreme it's called muscle dysmorphia aka reverse anorexia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_dysmorphia

WOW!! Thanks.

Hmm, maybe you shoulda posted this in the therapists chair thread... John Schuman at a club 12 months ago. Great interaction with the audience. Violent Femmes at BDO a couple years ago, but I loved everyone by the time they played. Sorry, no links.

High powered weaponry gone wrong.

Didn't Sly Moorcock ask for a meal of swan in Stark?

Lol, I'd be surprised if most people haven't used drugs at some time prior to driving.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4qU57xPh5E...player_embedded Allison inhales up to 10 cans of computer duster a day

Here is an article from today's SMH. http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/at-...91028-hl00.html ''Question time is dominated by 78 people on a boat. We have around 50,000 visa overstayers every year,'' he said of people who arrive by plane rather than boat. ''Is anyone saying this is a national crisis? One reason there is no outrage is that these people are mainly white and speak English. Is anyone demanding we clean out the backpackers' hostels of Bondi and Surry Hills?'' 50 000 is a little more than the 13 000 reported by Immigration...

I completely agree with you meanies. Certainly the numbers seem to suggest there is more than a bit of media beat up re: the whole 'boat people' issue. While the Aust. Government is generally more intrusive than I would like, we really are pretty lucky when you think about some of terrible things that other people go through at the hands of their governments - as I said it must take a desperate person to risk so much to come here on a leaky boat. Do people have an opinion on 'boat people' who come here via other countries? Should people who are fleeing horrible things have a right to choose where they go? I think it would be terrible for us to sit back and pretend we are untouchable because it is hard for refugees to get here, we certainly have a responsibility to help these poor people. It's still a tough one for me to answer though. If I put myself in their situation I think I would prefer to try to get to a country that is similar to Australia, but if I was desperate enough to risk the lives on my family wouldn't I be happy enough just to get out of my god-forsaken country? I can't imagine the local refugee camps are nice places though - perhaps I would want to get to the place of my choosing, even if it means going through 10 other 'safe' countries on the way. I saw a doco once about how NZ treats refugees. While I don't profess to be an expert it seems they have a sensible approach if refugees can live in the community while being processed.

Those (and these) are 2007-08 figures. There's no mention of when the 2008-09 annual report will be released - it's gotta be out by Christmas surely?? Figure 28 on the other link says there were peaks due to unauthorised boat arrivals between 99 and 02 but doesn't show the data. I can't find any explanation of what an unauthorised boat arrival is - maybe this doesn't include the people that came here by boat and were found to be refugees? Refugees aren't taken in detention, right? Someone didn't check the numbers though - here they are different. From: http://www.immi.gov.au/about/reports/annua...at-a-glance.htm Border security Passenger and crew arrivals and departures 25 700 000 Immigration clearances refused at airports 1 189 Immigration clearances refused at seaports 424 Unauthorised boat arrivals (people) 25 It would take a desperate person to cram their family into a relatively tiny boat with shitloads of other people. There is a memorial to the SIEV X in a park here and it's incredible to think there was 421 people on board a boat that was 19.5m x 4m. I can sort of understand why there is less hoo-haa about overstayers. To get a visa and passport the government already knows a fair bit about you. I'm sure there are ways to beat the system but the standards are already set pretty high. I don't know what can be done to reduce the number unless you want to make getting a visa unreasonably difficult for the majority that are here legitimately?

http://www.immi.gov.au/about/reports/annua...me1-outputs.pdf From page 110 - Approximately 13 880 or 0.3 per cent of temporary entrants overstayed their visas in 2007–08. From page 124 - Of the 4514 people taken into immigration detention during 2007–08: • 1865 were people who had been living in the community but overstayed or breached visa conditions representing 41.3 per cent of the total • 1232 were illegal foreign fishers representing 27.3 per cent of the total • 452 were unauthorised arrivals (423 by air and 29 by boat) representing 10.0 per cent of the total • 965 were in other categories representing 21.4 per cent of the total.

They ended it without even making it out of the bush! And so destructive!!!

He's outback on SBS1 right now.

Hope you have a good day and stayed out of the dust.

http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/d...90914-fmsk.html Alarmed by the side effects of its tolerant approach to soft drugs, the Dutch government announced plans this week to limit drug tourism by reserving hundreds of cannabis-vending coffee shops for locals. "The sale of hashish and cannabis in coffee shops must be limited and aimed solely at the local user," said a cabinet statement on Friday, days before a mayoral ban on marijuana sales enters into force for eight such shops near the Belgian border. Faced with the dilemma of criminal control over cannabis cultivation and the "nuisance" created by millions of drug tourists a year, authorities have been taking an increasingly tougher stance on recreational drugs. Some analysts point to a growing conservatism under the Christian Democrat-led government. In the clearest indication yet of its global vision for the future, the cabinet on Friday broadly adopted the advice of a committee it had appointed to help in a review of national drug policy. The commission said in July "the situation has gotten out of hand", advising that "coffee shops should again become what they were originally meant to be: vending points for local users and not large-scale suppliers to consumers from neighbouring countries." The cabinet said it wanted to "limit the nuisance and crime risks". "The consensus is that it should be much more difficult for tourists to buy from Dutch coffee shops," justice ministry spokeswoman Karen Temmink explained. A draft new drugs policy is to be presented to parliament by year-end. The Netherlands decriminalised the consumption and possession of under five grammes of cannabis in 1976. There are some 700 licensed coffee shops. Paradoxically, cultivation remains illegal and the two-billion-euro-a-year industry, according to police, is effectively in the hands of the criminal underworld. In another unintended consequence, several border towns complain of the burdens associated with a weekly influx of tens of thousands of tourists, mainly Belgian, French and German. Among recent steps taken to deal with these problems, Amsterdam has said it would halve its number of coffee shops, citing criminality, while other cities are to close those within a certain radius of schools. In the southern Limburg province, 30 coffee shops announced recently they would become private members' clubs from next year and reduce the daily limit from five to three grammes per person. Patrons would require membership cards and a Dutch debit card to pay with, effectively cutting off tourists. The Limburg move is backed by the national government, and is one of several pilot projects whose results will be incorporated in its new policy. Roosendaal and Bergen-op-Zoom, two other southern border councils, announced last year that their eight coffee shops would be interdicted from selling cannabis from next Wednesday in a bid to push back some 25,000 drug tourists per week. This should make an end, the mayors explained, to the long lines of foreign cars on their roads, hundreds of youths hovering outside coffee shops on weekends, and illegal drug dealers attracted by their presence. The owners of the eight coffee shops challenged the mayors' actions in court on Friday. Judgment is expected next Tuesday. Meanwhile, the two municipalities have launched a campaign to inform youths about the pending changes, including a three-minute video clip entitled "It is over", to be shown in cinemas in nearby Antwerp in Belgium. The clip shows three Belgian tourists arriving to find the doors of their favourite coffee shop closed. They end up in a police van after an encounter with illegal dealers. Though the video clip has a humourous undertone, the message couldn't be more serious. From Wednesday, "law enforcement will be stepped up to put an immediate stop to any illegal street sales", Roosendaal spokesman Dirk Timmers said.

tanks mulchy VVVVVVV get ~10 x Lactuca virosa, 10 x acacia maidenii, pach x J3, thai sweet basil, nicotiana and 20 x HBWR (all seed) VVVVVVVV

Has anyone read Flatland? An interesting take on the topic, written in 1884! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland